1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method that provide remote control over information sent to a viewing device. The system and method provide control over the content or quantity of information sent to the viewing device. In particular, the information may be an Internet or Intranet world-wide web (WWW) page, with Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Handheld Device Markup Language (HDML), Wireless Markup Language (WML), or Java content. The remote viewing device may be a handheld, laptop, or palmtop device with a limited viewing space for the information being received, and preferably connects to the Internet over a relatively low-bandwidth wireless radio network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Typically, handheld or palmtop devices have very limited viewing surfaces, limited memory available, slower processing speeds, and limited user inputs in comparison to large desktop computer systems. These devices may also communicate over a bandwidth-limited data network, such as a wireless packet data network, a cellular network using a digital packet data protocol, or they may use a limited speed modem to download at speeds between 9600 and 28K bits per second (bps). For these reasons it is desirable to limit the data these devices receive over the network or through the modem, particularly when receiving large data files, such as web pages that may include text, graphics, animations, multimedia files, or other interactive elements.
A known method for limiting data transfer to such a viewing device involves restricting the transmittal of graphic information. By providing a specific configuration setting available on most Internet browsers, a user can specify that only text information is fetched by the browser. The graphical portions of the web page are left behind. This method is indiscriminate, however, and leaves the user with little useful control; simply an on or off switch for changing the type of information viewed. In many cases there are pieces of text that are not desired in the information stream, and pieces of graphics that are desired in the information stream, but the user has no control over this situation.
A second known method, which is used more commonly in a wireless environment, involves new standards for controlling the content being delivered to the handheld viewing device. One such new standard is HDML, which was intended to replace the universally accepted HTML format for delivering content to handheld viewers. This approach has some industry backing, but fails to allow users access to all Internet and Intranet information.
Another known method for solving the wireless Internet content problem is to xe2x80x9cspoofxe2x80x9d the Inter-network Protocol (IP) and Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) so that they partially work over the wireless link. This xe2x80x9cspoofingxe2x80x9d method, however, often leads to a failure of both the protocols and the device to display all the information.
Alternatively, several attempts have been made at using a wireless proxy to eliminate using both TCP and IP over the wireless network. A wireless proxy is a computer that terminates a TCP/IP connection on one end and a wireless connection on the other end. The most common use of a proxy is as a TCP/IP xe2x80x9cfirewall,xe2x80x9d which is used in most companies"" networks today. This proxy method removes the TCP/IP protocol from running over the wireless network, but leaves the actual data transferred untouched. This type of proxy has limited ability to further limit the higher-level information being sent to the user, and in particular the bandwidth heavy graphics and multimedia files embedded in most web pages.
Still another known method for limiting information sent to a portable viewing device is to have users pre-define the information sites they intend to access using their portable viewing device. In this method, a user must pick, ahead of time, every site to be accessed and must select the information to be transferred when connecting with the wireless viewer. This selection is typically done on a large desktop computer system, where visibility, memory, CPU speed and keyboard input are not restricted. The challenge for the user, however, is to have foreknowledge of every site to be accessed. This method thus falls short of offering the user a general-purpose browser for a wireless device, in which the user maintains dynamic control over what information is transmitted to the wireless devices.
A system and method for transporting user-restricted data from a gateway device to a handheld viewing device is provided. The gateway device includes an information translator, content filters and storage. The information translator delivers content to the gateway device from an information database coupled to the gateway via a network. A viewing component of the handheld device receives from the gateway device all possible data that the handheld device is capable of viewing. The user is able to manually select certain portions of data through a user interface in the handheld device, the selected portions corresponding to information that the user does not want to view during a subsequent retrieval of the same data. Once the selection is complete, a series of command instructions are returned to the gateway device from the handheld device so that a subsequent viewing corresponds only to that information that was not selected by the user. Alternatively, the user could select only that portion of data that the user wants to view during a subsequent download. In this latter situation, the command instruction transmitted to the gateway would instruct the gateway to filter all information except for the selected data.
The invention provides control over viewed content or information from any database. This control is based on commands stored in the gateway device. The commands limit the quantity of information sent to the handheld device. This functionality is accomplished by first establishing a set of information (or content) that is going to be restricted by the user. Then, the handheld device performs an editing function to restrict the information received. This editing process causes a set of commands to be passed back to the gateway device to restrict subsequent or future retrievals of the same information. The gateway device identifies the subsequent information request and performs the necessary filtering in order to restrict the information sent to the handheld device.